Running a successful online business starts with your drive, passion and determination to succeed. While most people do possess these qualities, there are certain aspects that will separate those who succeed from those who never quite make it.

One of the factors in determining success is how well you can craft and hone your efforts into reaching new customers. This is where organisation becomes vitally important, especially in your marketing approach. That is why having a marketing calendar is vital towards building up your business and helping you succeed.

What Is A Marketing Calendar?

Basically, a marketing calendar is a tool that helps you organise and highlight a series of activities, events and efforts that promote your business efforts. In addition to making it clear in terms of the order of your marketing, it also helps focus your attention on projecting towards the future and meeting your goals of success.

A marketing calendar is not just for your use, but also for those who work in your company and other companies or individuals that support your efforts. A marketing calendar is actually a well established tool of advertising and promotions that goes back many decades. Today, the use of such a calendar is still vitally important to achieving strong coordination and efficiency.

The Benefits Of Using A Marketing Calendar

There are several benefits that using a marketing calendar provides for you and your business efforts. You should start by obtaining a calendar that you will use and refer to on a daily basis. You can either purchase an old-fashioned printed calendar, or use one online. Whichever works best and is the most comfortable to the way you like to work and operate.

In fact, many people use both, an online version that they can share with others while keeping a large, printed version in their home or office to remind them of where they are and where they need to be.

Organisation & Preparation
Essentially, a marketing calendar puts everything into proper perspective as it sets up your planning and helps you prepare for your day to day activities. For web marketers, this calendar can take into account many different marketing strategies such as email autoresponder dates, content frameworks and social media marketing efforts.

Here is where the marketing calendar is arguably the most effective. By putting things in order and by helping to prepare for each step along the way, you can minimise duplication and mistakes while focusing on what will help you succeed.

Clear Learning Path
Another way that having a marketing calendar helps is learning from the mistakes that were made or from marketing campaigns that may not have been entirely successful. Learning from our mistakes is made much easier when we can compare our goals to the results that were achieved.

Having a calendar that not only marks the days in which you apply your marketing efforts, but the results as well will help you learn from each activity and discover what can be done to improve going forwards.

Reduce ConfusionUnderstanding your marketing efforts requires that the investment, communication, and results are there for all to see. You can put up your annual marketing goals along with quarterly, monthly and weekly progress as you strive towards growing and developing your business.

One of the biggest mistakes that many people make in their marketing efforts is repeating the same mistakes because they either forgot or overlooked the results of their last efforts. By keeping that on your marketing calendar, you can learn from and be reminded of what didn’t work before, so you can start on a new path instead.

Informs Contributors Of Your System
When you put your calendar online or in the cloud, it will help inform everybody of your progress, goals and efforts. This is a great way to keep everyone on the same track so that they can contribute in more positive ways to your marketing campaigns.

Quite often, the help that people get from their contributors does not exactly fit with the goals or efforts that are needed for you to succeed. By having a marketing calendar available, they can see and track your efforts and know just what to do to help. This can be of enormous benefit since everyone is now on the same page.

Assist During Slow Times
There will be periods when your business is naturally running at a slower pace. This is usual for businesses who operate in seasonal times, such as toy companies at Christmas or outdoor companies in the summer. This is where having this type of marketing tool can be crucial to provide you with the focus needed to come up with new campaigns or help manage the ones that are currently running.

In fact, you can even draw up ideas for these slower times and test them to see what will work. For many, this is a great way to expand the reach of their advertising efforts and expand their customer base.

As you can see, having a calendar that schedules and tracks your marketing efforts can help lead you towards success. But is this something that you really need for your business?

Will A Marketing Calendar Work For You?

The obvious answer is “yes” since it helps you to focus your marketing efforts on goals that will equal success. By providing clarity, organisation, and managing multiple tasks at the same time, your marketing calendar provides a means to help you establish routine performance.

Marketing calendars are a staple of business, particularly in larger corporations that have complex internal structures and logistical challenges. However, they have become quite popular with small businesses and entrepreneurs as they provide a guidepost to focusing your efforts, understanding what has worked and avoiding failed campaigns, or recognising the mistakes that you have made.

Overall, a marketing calendar is a must-have for all types of business owners who want to maximise their chances of success.

When you consider just how many people fail because they lack the basic understanding of what works for their business, getting this type of a calendar is a must.

About AuthorStuartJDavidson

Stuart is a digital marketing strategist living in Kent, UK. Stuart blogs at StuartJDavidson.com where he shares his extensive freelance and corporate marketing experiences. He is also the author of "How to Win in Social Media".

I had heard of editorial calendars, but I never thought much about a marketing calendar. This makes so much sense! Especially in a business setting, that way people don’t duplicate their efforts. Organization is so important. Right on.

Free eBook: How to Win in Social Media

Enter your name and email for instant access to my free eBook

I respect your privacy. I do not sell or share your information with anyone.

AboutMy Blog

I realised that I’m not leveraging my most valuable asset, my own knowledge and experiences. So I decided to setup this blog to share my learning’s and to provide quality advice and tutorials to those who need it.

FeaturedTutorial

I have delivered many coaching sessions on how businesses should use Hootsuite.
Check out my video tutorial with my overall thoughts on the best and worst bits of Hootsuite, along with some further resources for additional learning.